RetroArch v1.0.0.0 (2014/01/05) is released. RetroArch is a multi-system emulator for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and *BSD. It is formerly known as SSNES. Its design and background is quite different than most other emulators as RetroArch does not implement an emulation core itself. RetroArch talks to libretro, a generic emulator core API. This means that RetroArch is core agnostic, and it does not care which emulator core is running.

Currently there are libretro implementations for systems such as SNES, NES, GBA, GB/GBC, Genesis, and even arcade games (Final Burn Alpha).

libretro isn't only usable for emulators. A preliminary port of an open source reimplementation of Cave Story has been ported to libretro as well.

RetroArch believes in modularity. The application itself is a command-line driven application suitable for HTPC and/or headless use. There also exists a GUI frontend for RetroArch, supporting every single config option available in RetroArch.

- RGUI has gotten a face lift in user friendliness.
* On first startup, a start screen is shown with the basic hotkeys for RGUI.
This should help new users use RGUI.
* Gamepad configuration can now be done from within RGUI. Not all hotkeys are exposed, but the most important ones are.
* The .info-file concept from OSX/iOS ports of RetroArch have been made mainline.
These files contain basic metadata which helps RGUI be more user friendly.
- When choosing libretro cores, more friendly names are shown instead of the raw dll paths.
- Load Game (Detect Core) is added to the menu.
This allows you do choose a ROM directly without having to switch the libretro core first.
If multiple cores can match to the extension, a list will be presented with relevant cores.
Even .zip files are supported in this way, as it will try to match against files within the zip.